Political, Scientific Chicanery Underlies Global Warming Alarmism

In her December 28 CNN article, "How Germany Banishes Climate Myths," German environment minister Barbara Hendricks argues that the climate policies enabled by her country and the EU as a whole have been an economic success.

This is nothing more than East German-style disinformation.

The reality is that Germany’s so-called “Solar Valley” has become a mothballed industrial rust belt. Nearly all solar energy manufacturers have closed their doors.

In support of her argument, Hendricks claims that while greenhouse gas emissions in the EU fell by 18% between 1990 and 2012, there was cumulative growth of 45% in the EU’s economy during this period. However, this represents a growth rate of only 2% annually, while typical investment portfolios grew by between 100% (4.5% annually) and 300% (13.6% annually) during this time.

Hendricks asserts:

Scientists have long agreed that climate action strengthens economic development and creates an opportunity for comprehensive modernization of our economies.

This makes no sense. Scientists aren’t experts on economics, and unbiased scientists never agree on such contentious matters. Hendricks continues:

The age of fossil fuel is coming to an end, just as the age of the horse and cart, the steam locomotive and the oil lamp eventually came to an end.

Strange, then, that the price of oil currently languishes near a 10-year low; that, allowing for technological developments, the world has adequate supplies of hydrocarbons to last for several hundred years; that coal remains the dominant energy source worldwide; and that even after 30 years of intensive propaganda and taxpayer subsidy, solar and wind energy sources are yet to provide even 2% of the world’s energy supply.

Hendricks’ CNN article is just another example of the use of fraudulent PR spin to promote a desired political message while ignoring the realities of science and economics. Regrettably, such obligatory use of spin and misinformation has now become a political norm, and may even be an inevitable result of modern Western democratic processes. But what is much more damaging, and has now been weakening OECD nations and the world economy for more than 30 years, is the complicity of leading and influential scientists in these political processes.

Why is it that when a political figure makes a misstatement about a global warming-related issue, which happens many times every day, no government scientific agency or leading university scientist ever corrects them?

For example, all climate modelers correctly label their speculations of future world temperatures as “projections,” meaning that they have no validated forecast skill. Yet politicians, mass media, and the public treat the models as providing temperature forecasts or predictions. Because this misusage is never corrected, politicians cheerily continue to base expensive public policy on it.

Another example: carbon dioxide, as an essential factor in photosynthesis, is the elixir of planetary life, yet politicians dub it a “pollutant.” Similarly, badging the theoretical global warming problem as a “carbon” issue represents scientific illiteracy because it fails to distinguish the element “carbon” from the molecule “carbon dioxide,” and deliberately encourages the public to confuse a colorless, odorless, beneficial gas with soot. Again, climate-alarmist scientists say little or nothing to correct these mistakes.

Many in the public understand that Hendricks’ behavior is typical of politicians everywhere. But most people do not recognize that fraud is also being directly committed in support of this travesty by many of today’s self-appointed “leading climate scientists.” For when they are not directly massaging the data relied upon in their scientific writings, these scientists often report their findings in ways that are intended to deceive the reader into believing that dangerous global warming exists, or will shortly exist. The UN’s climate reports are the magnum opus of this style of operation.

Describing or presenting data in ways that are intended to mislead represents an ultimate betrayal of the scientific method. Worse, the National Science Foundation might have funded the research, and the results are being published in leading scientific journals.

Massaging results can be even worse than direct fabrication. Skilled practitioners can bolster and present tendentious arguments based on real facts in ways that require extraordinary intellectual strength and lengthy discussion to rebut, responses that few science journals will allow to be published. And thus politicization of climate change research has led to that field now representing a travesty of proper scientific process.

The main reason that this exploitative scientific behavior is not more often openly labeled fraud is the fear of legal reprisal against scientist whistleblowers. For those who pursue climate alarmism have almost unlimited funds and legal advice -- not to mention the support of the press, academia, government, and even religious institutions -- to pursue and defend their cause.

The role played by professional climate scientists in propping up what is arguably the most costly scandal in human history should concern all responsible citizens. We are in serious trouble as a society should other science-based policy discussions be carried out in similar fashion to the climate debate.

Former Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics solar-climate expert Dr. Sallie Baliunas said in a presentation before the Independent Institute:

Science is the only successful means we know of to explain nature ... But science needs special societal protection, and without that protection, science will just be dialed out and, in its place will be substituted the myths that humans love to create.

If science is to continue playing a leadership role in modern society, it must be protected from climate researchers who employ censorship, dishonesty, and aggression in an attempt to frighten the world into rash action. Scientists from all disciplines must now speak out. The stakes are too high to accept anything less.